just north of Leipzig.  The Emperor’s host in its brave show of silver and plumes and gold, the plunder of many campaigns under its invincible leader, looked with contempt upon the travel-worn Swedes in their poor, soiled garb.  The stolid Finns sat their mean but wiry little horses very unlike Pappenheim’s dreaded Walloons, descendants of the warlike Belgae of Gaul who defied the Germans of old in the forest of the Ardennes and joined Caesar in his victorious march.  But Tilly himself was not deceived.  He knew how far this enemy had come and with what hardships cheerfully borne; how they had routed the Russians, written laws for the Poles in their own land, and overthrown armies and forts that barred their way.  He would wait for reinforcements; but his generals egged him on, said age had made him timid and slow, and carried the day.

The King slept in an empty cart the night before the battle and dreamed that he wrestled with Tilly and threw him, but that he tore his breast with his teeth.  When all was ready in the morning he rode along the front and told his fusiliers not to shoot till they saw the white in the enemy’s eyes, the horsemen not to dull their swords by hacking the helmets of the Walloons:  “Cut at their horses and they will go down with them.”  In the pause before the onset he prayed with head uncovered and lowered sword, and his voice carried to the farthest lines: 

“Thou, God, in whose hands are victory and defeat, look graciously upon thy servants.  From distant lands and peaceful homes have we come to battle for freedom, truth and thy gospel.  Give us victory for thy holy name’s sake, Amen!”

Tilly had expected the King to attack, but the fiery Pappenheim upset his plans.  The smoke of the guns drifted in the faces of the Swedes and the King swung his army to the south to get the wind right.  In making the turn they had to cross a brook and this moment Pappenheim chose for his charge.  Like a thunderbolt his Walloons fell upon them.  The Swedish fire mowed them down like ripened grain and checked their impetuous rush.  They tried to turn the King’s right and so outflank him; but the army turned with them and stood like a rock.  The extreme mobility of his forces was Gustav Adolf’s great advantage in his campaigns.  He revised the book of military tactics up to date.  The imperial troops were massed in solid columns, after the old Spanish fashion, the impact of which was hard to resist when they struck.  The King’s, on the contrary, moved in smaller bodies, quickly thrown upon the point of danger, and his artillery was so distributed among them as to make every shot tell on the compact body of the enemy.  Whichever way Pappenheim turned he found a firm front, bristling with guns, opposing him.  Seven times he threw himself upon the living wall; each time his horsemen were flung back, their lines thinned and broken.  The field was strewn with their dead.  Tilly, anxiously watching, threw up his hands in despair.  “This man will lose me honor and fame, and the Emperor his lands,” he cried.  The charge ended in wild flight, and Tilly saw that he must himself attack, to turn the tide.